Browse trail:

Language, Mobility and Institutions

This series focuses on language and new ways of looking at the challenges facing institutions as a result of the mobility and connectedness characteristic of present day society. The relevant settings and practices will encompass multilingualism, bilingualism and varieties of the majority language and discourse used in institutional settings. The series takes a wide-ranging view of mobility, reflecting both the population flows typical of current globalised societies as well as the systems developed to connect minority communities within and across national borders. The series also adopts a broad understanding of institutions that incorporates less studied sites as well as the social processes connected to issues of power, control and authority in established institutions.

The editors welcome proposals on new sites that highlight the complex ways that institutions, through language and interactional routines and practices, are implicated in the (re)production of social orders that lead to inclusion/exclusion. These sites are likely to include organisations such as private businesses, health centres or state bureaucracies that are responding to linguistic and cultural diversity; more recently formed sites and centres, both state and voluntary sector, that deal with the changing demographics of communities; and the organisations and institutions created by linguistic minorities to manage their lives within the majority group.

The series also seeks to provide a forum for theoretical, applied and methodological contributions to research on language and institutions that will advance new ways of understanding the role of language in social life. While some books in the series will focus on studies of particular sites, others may take an over-arching theoretical position or focus on the methodologies that shed light on these complex new sites and processes.